214: ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF Chap. V. 



mate plant, and four flowers on the latter crossed with 

 pollen from the illegitimate seedlin'?s, yielded seven 

 capsules with an average of 53 seeds, with a maximum 

 of 73. I must here state that I have found some 

 difiBculty in estimating the normal standard of fer- 

 tility for the several unions of this species, as the re- 

 sults differ much during successive years, and the 

 seeds vary so greatly in size that it is hard to decide 

 which ought to be considered good. In order to avoid 

 over-estimating the infertility of the several illegitimate 

 unions, I have taken the normal standard as low as 

 possible. 



From the foregoing twenty-seven illegitimate plants, 

 fertilised with their own-form pollen, twenty-five seed- 

 ling grandchildren were raised;, and these were all 

 long-styled; so that from the two illegitimate gener- 

 ations fifty-two plants were raised, and all without 

 exception proved long-styled. These grandchildren 

 grew vigorously, and soon exceeded in height two 

 other lots of illegitimate seedlings of different parent- 

 age and one lot of equal-styled seedlings presently to 

 be described. Hence I expected that they would have 

 turned ^iyOut highly ornamental plants; but when they 

 flowered, they seemed, as my gardener remarked, to 

 have gone back to the wild state; for the petals were 

 pale-coloured, narrow, sometimes not touching each 

 other, flat, generally deeply notched in the middle, 

 but not flexuous on the margin, and with the yellow 

 eye or centre conspicuous. Altogether these flowers 

 were strikingly different from those of their pro- 

 genitors; and this, I think, can only be accounted 

 for on the principle of reversion. Most of the anthers 

 on one plant were contabescent. Seventeen flowers 

 on the grandchildren were illegitimately fertilised 

 with pollen taken from other seedlings of the same 



